PLEASE DONATE ANYTHING YOU CAN FOR THE PREMIER EXHIBITION OF THIS PHOTOGRAPHIC PROJECT SUPPORTING PEACE IN NORTHERN IRELAND! http://www.sponsume.com/project/photographic-project-supporting-peace-northern-ireland (Taken with instagram)

Do me a wee favour, check out my project for my final year exhibition and, if possible, donate even just a quid so I can have my photographs on display in the Graduate Show! 

I really care about the message my photographs are promoting and I want as many influential people to see them as possible. As Newport is celebrating 100 Years of Photography, many important people from the industry will be at the Graduate Show so I plan to get my work up there! 

If you can’t donate anything please post this link on friends walls as I believe this is a really worthy cause close to my heart. Lets work towards peace and a decrease of sectarianism in Northern Ireland!

(follow link to view the images and hear about the project in more detail)

http://www.sponsume.com/project/photographic-project-supporting-peace-northern-ireland

After three cancelled photoshoots, we finally got to test this concept on location… thoughts welcome!

After an amazing week with family at home in Northern Ireland, I’m back to good ole Newport.  Goodbye wee lush emerald isle with your parades, burnt out cars and riots! Common sights during the Twelfth week.

Before I have my rant, can I just say that I’d absolutely love to hear your views on this matter and answer any questions at all.

So, here we go…

If you don’t know much about the goings on concerning the 12th of July in Northern Ireland, it’s worth looking up.  In a nutshell, the Protestant parades happening on this day result in a re-surfacing of the ridiculous hatred between the Protestant and Catholic people.  

What I find insane about the underlying hatred between these two groups is the fact that the words “Catholic” and “Protestant” are merely labels to the individuals behind the trouble.  Mistakenly, the majority of people outside of Northern Ireland are led to believe that the feud is based on religion, and the acts of terrorism are carried out by Christian extremists.  To be blunt, this is complete and utter rubbish. 

For want of a better word, the people involved are not “religious” in the slightest and many don’t even believe in God at all.  If anything, this divide highlights the Christians in the country as they’ll have nothing to do with it.  

Every individual in Northern Ireland adopts the label of either “Protestant” or “Catholic” solely based upon the family/area/home you are born into and brought up in.  School systems do nothing to help the matter with their segregation between Protestant and Catholic high schools.

From an extremely young age, children are aware of the divide.  Teenagers are violently fighting with each other simply because of the uniform they wear, signifying whether they attend a Protestant or Catholic school.

Surely by now someone would realise the stupidity of it all!!! It’s as ridiculous as racism. This world we live in is truly in a right mess when we look around and see people dying over labels and colours. 

It’s about time we woke up world…